


like some sort of greek tragedy

by EclipseWing



Series: Supernatural Mix-Tape [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Finally wrote my spn one, Gen, Set s6, That obligatory daemon AU drabble that I do for every fandom, it's been a list forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclipseWing/pseuds/EclipseWing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam comes back from Hell without his daemon.</p><p>Daemon AU drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like some sort of greek tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> There is a beautiful daemon AU someone wrote for supernatural. It's in my FFNet bookmarks somewhere, and it's got pretty much all the characters down. Here I just wanted to explore what would happen with regards to the brothers dying all the freaking time.

Dean knows there is something wrong with Sam the moment he sees him. It's not just the way the Campbells move around him, giving him a wide berth. It's not just the fact that Sam's here, been alive and well for a year and hasn't let Dean know. It's not just the fact that Sam is pragmatic and coldly logical without an ounce of the compassion Dean is used to in his baby brother.

It's the fact that Ceri is missing.

Dean gets second looks from almost all the Campbells, including Samuel. He knows why. He doesn't say anything. If they want to, they can ask.

And ask they do.

"Is it genetic or something?" Christian sneers, "You don't have a daemon." His own is a jackal, pacing sedately at his side.

Samuel is frowning at him, no doubt because he remembers meeting Dean before. He remembers Dean's daemon.

"I have a daemon," Dean says, "She's right behind you."

The cousins whirl around, Gwen's hawk letting out a sharp cry and shifting on her shoulder as if he wants to take flight.

Kore pays them no attention.

Kore is beautiful. Kore is dangerous. She's sleek and smooth and every inch an predator. She's got a scarred muzzle and one ear is now permanently notched, but Dean will always love her.

How can he not? She is his soul.

She's not quite a wolf. Her coat is slightly the wrong colour, the wrong texture, her eyes are also the wrong colour, but in Dean's mind there is nothing wrong with her. She's slightly too tame for a wolf, but she's too wild to be just a dog.

When she settled Dean had been forced to see someone about his hybrid daemon. It wasn't normal, they said, not natural. Dean thinks that they just don't know him very well because Kore is perfect for him.

She paces across now, ear twitching just slightly, a silent signal that Dean can understand perfectly.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Gwen blurts out, unable to keep quiet, "Did you separate… or…?" her eyes are wide and too too innocent.

"Oh, you can't imagine," Dean says.

His cousin is almost sympathetic, "That must have been hell," she says.

Kore flashes her teeth and Dean grins, "Yes," he says, "Yes, it was," and watches the realisation dawn in Gwen's eyes.

It's one thing pulling the human out of the pit. It's another scooping out their daemon too. Castiel, it appears, has a particular problem with it. Dean's not sure what went wrong, but ever since Hell, since the demons dragged him under and an angel dragged him back out, distance isn't a barrier for them. Why should it be when they've crossed dimensions, crossed life and death and everything in between.

She hadn't been with him in the pit. Daemons don't follow you when you die, but she followed him back to life. Dean's not sure what Cas did, but he was eternally grateful when he broke ground to a wet nose and paws digging away at the dirt and Kore pressing herself to him.

Sam however… Sam fell with Ceri. Sam jumped and Ceri flew right down after him.

It's clear to Dean that something went wrong.

Ceri isn't around. Not up in the air, not sitting on Kore's back, not on Sam's shoulders… she's gone.

Or maybe she never came back to start with.

 

Sam thinks it's pointless. He doesn't see why he needs a daemon following him around.

That isn't the term he uses.

He calls Ceri a 'dumb animal'.

Dean punches him for that. Sam doesn't understand what he's missing at the moment, he's essentially soulless, but Dean's going to change that.

He lost Kore once. She’d been torn away from him. He won’t let the same thing happen to his brother. He knows Hell, and Kore wasn’t there, but they both know what she was named for.

And it’s like some sort of Greek tragedy but Dean’s going to get Ceri back from Hell for Sam.

Sam acts jealous, but Dean knows Sam doesn't have the emotional capacity to be jealous at the moment. "You care about this animal part of me more than you do me."

That's not true either. Dean's always found it easier to talk to Ceri. Sam pushes for conversations, but Ceri's quiet. She waits until Dean's ready, because she's the part of Sam that knows Dean will come to them in time.

She's a raven. Dean thinks it's appropriate, once commented to Sam how similar he was to John only for Sam to stalk off in a huff. It's true though. Calida's a hawk, Calida is a hunter to the bone. Independent, raises it's fletchlings and then kicks them out of the nest. A few years on and Dean can appreciate how perfect for his father Calida was, and then mourn what he never had, what he never saw, what he doesn't remember, what was taken from him in a fire so he never got to see the hawk defending her nest.

All he remembers about Calida is that she could offer no physical comfort in her small, raptor body to Kore when she was still shifting.

But that was okay. John never offered much to him either.

Ceri is the opposite. She nests. She treats them like a family, the four of them. She calls it a murder, insisting that she's a raven, it's a murder of ravens. Kore calls it a pack and it's the only thing they disagree about which is stupid because they're different words for the same thing.

Dean's going to get her back.

He hunts around. He calls Castiel but Cas doesn't see the problem. He's never understood daemons the way humans do, he's never had one. Jimmy's had followed him around for a short time, a little chipmunk, but she's long since vanished into Dust. Demons don't have one either, they take over their host's. That is if their host is even still alive.

Sam and Dean use that fact to determine if the host needs the exorcism or the knife. Or at least they did, this Sam doesn't really care.

So Dean does something about it.

Death doesn't have a daemon. Not that Dean expected that, but it still creeps him out. Even after he and Kore split, after the angels and demons without daemons, the man sitting in front of him alone still sends shivers down his spine.

"I've got her," Death says, the raven a bundle of black feathers barely visible against the black suit, "She's broken. The cage practically severed her connection to your brother, but I should be able to reconnect it. It will, however, hurt Sam. It will also not be as strong as it was before."

"Do it," Kore says it for both of them. She's terrified of Death. He repels her, she can barely even look at him. He's emptiness, he's nothing, he's what takes Dean away from her forever when their time comes.

But right now, at this time, Death doesn't use his scythe to separate. He uses it to bind to broken strands back together. It's not impossible. Cas did it for him. A no-name crossroads demon did it for Sam before, bringing Ceri's fragile form back into existence.

Azazel did it for John and for Dean, Mary's husky watching over them, Samuel's wolf long vanished into dust.

She'd never wanted to be a hunter, but a husky was only one step away from a wolf. It just had it's priorities in a different place.

Dean's a mix between the two, and his family are all the matters. And as Ceri's dull feathers brighten and Sam's eyes fly open, Kore presses her warm head to his chest and Dean knows that they'll always be worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Kore is a female wolf-dog crossbreed. In normal daemon societies, crossbreeds probably speaks of lots of mental issues, but it fit Dean. Her name is Kore which if anyone knows their Greek Mythos, is basically Persephone’s original name before they changed it.  
> Ceri is a raven. Because ravens and wolves have a symbiotic relationship and if that's not Sam and Dean then I don't know what is. Also it's similar to John's own bird, but also not because they tend to antagonize other birds of prey. Ravens also have a lot of superstition and myths attached to them which for Sam's destiny arc fit perfectly. Ceri, I think, is Welsh for 'love' but don't quote me on that.  
> Castiel and Crowley would both develop daemons after their stints of being human s9. I'm not sure what they'd be. Gabriel would fake a demon for his trickster god persona. It would be a magpie.


End file.
